Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 09.djvu/69

60, of General Johnston's staff, will bear repetition with emphasis. He says: *   *  "half-past 12 o'clock came, and no appearance of the missing column, and no report from Bragg. General Johnston and staff, including myself, rode to the rear until we found the missing column standing stock still, with its head some distance out in an open field. General Polk's reserve were head of it, with their wagons and artillery blocking up the road. General Johnston ordered them to clear the road and the missing column to move forward."

General Clark's division constituted that portion of Polk's reserves then present, and the inquiry at once arises as to how they came there? His division not having moved from its bivouac, occupied during the night, until notified to advance, at about 7 o'clock A. M. on the 5th of April, met with the obstruction of Clark's division, which had preceded it about sunrise—half-past 5 o'clock in the morning.

Had Ruggles's division bivouaced in the advance of Clark's, as has been assumed, is there a probability that it would have been permitted to remain at a halt, while Clark's division moved past it, in violation of orders?

This inquiry awaits an answer from both Colonel Johnston and Captain Polk. As a matter of courtesy I suggest, in taking a commonsense view, that Clark's division marched there, following General Withers's division of Bragg's second corps closely, as soon as it marched, at an early hour that morning, and thus obstructed the entrance of Ruggles's division into its prescribed position in the advancing column!

Captain Polk quotes a clause from a letter received from General Charles Clark, the division commander of the First corps (Polk's), the present:

Extract: "We bivouaced Friday night on the road, the head of the column—General A. P. Stewart's brigade—within a quarter of a mile, I think, of Mickey's house. Very early in the morning the head of the column was at Mickey's cross-roads—I think about sunrise." *   *   * "At Mickey's cross-roads we were halted for some hours. General Polk was with me at the head of the column."—S. H. S. papers, p. 460, vol. 8.

The inquiry is also presented as to what the missing column, "standing stock still, with its head out some distance in an open field," was doing there?

General Polk's version of an interview with Beauregard, "near 4 o'clock P. M.," would warrant the inference that this may be a pure fiction, and that the conditions were reversed—that it was my bull which had gored the plucky old bishop's ox before both were corralled."